Airplane restoration and military aviation enthusiasts alike can follow the airplane’s journey from the storage hangers of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum to the Combat Gallery of the Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force where it arrived in pieces on the backs of four tractor-trailers.
The City of Savannah volunteers brought a wide range of skills to the task—they were airframe and power plant mechanics, painters, aeronautical engineers, electrical engineers, business people and administrators, even a former physics professor with a Ph.D. and 30 years of flying experience. Many were drawn to the project after their day jobs at Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, LMI Aerospace, Inc., and the 165th Airlift Wing of the Georgia Air National Guard. Others were retired and eager to make a long-term commitment to restoring a vintage warbird.